After doing research on the general uses of music in film (blog post found here), I wanted to examine examples of different ways sound is used in comedy films specifically. This will give me a better idea of what to do in my film opening in order to conform to/break comedy genre conventions.
Wayne’s World
Wayne’s World (1992) was directed by Penelope Spheeris and follows the story of two friends who are trying to promote their radio show. Towards the beginning of the movie, there is a scene where Wayne and his friends are driving through the streets of Aurora, Illinois singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. In this scene, the sound switches between diagetic and nondiagetic which adds a cohesive element to the entirety of the scene. As for ambient sound, Garth’s car is making really loud noises to show that it isn’t in the best condiotin, which adds to the humor of the scene. There is a part where Wayne and Garth pull over to see their friend Phil, who is clearly drunk, and the music stops playing. After a humorous exchange of dialogue, they all get in the car and the music starts again. As they continue driving, the characters head bang, play fake drums, and make funny faces in sync to the song. This in itself is comedic because it comes across as silly.
When Wayne gets out of the car to look at the guitar, he says,”It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.” Behind this dialogue there is angelic, hopeful music. Wayne looks right in the camera and makes a very serious yet comedic face, which makes the combination of visuals and sound so humorous.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) was directed by Stephen Herek and tells the story of two teenage boys who time travel in order to get an A on their history report. Throughout the film, whenever Bill and Ted think of something clever or do something spectacular, they do an air guitar solo with their hands. Whenever they do this, a guitar solo sound motif plays. It happens every time and each time it gets funnier, mostly because the occasions they choose to do the air guitar are just plain stupid. My film opening won’t be able to include a sound motif because it would seem awkward; I am only making the first two minutes and there typically aren’t sound motifs in the first two minutes of a film.
Ghostbusters
This article by NPR talks about how the original Ghostbusters (1984) (composed by Elmer Bernstein) and the Ghostbusters reboot (2016) (composed by Theodore Shapiro) used music to convey comedy to the audience. Shapiro chose to score Ghostbusters (2016) like a gothic horror film. His style of composing for comedy films is to compose a serious soundtrack that contrasts with the humorous actions going on onscreen. The director of Ghostbusters (2016), Paul Feig, said,”I find the only way to make things funny is to put funny people in real situations. Because of that, it’s very hard to then kind of put a funny score onto it.” This offers an explanation for why Shapiro chooses to compose this way; he believes comedy is made funny by the people, not the music. Rather than using music to highlight the comedy, which is more difficult and may be seen as cheesy, he uses music to create irony and deepen the humor to a new level. This is something that I don’t think I will be able to achieve in my title sequence since it is such a short amount of time. However, this strategy is really interesting and good to know about for future reference.
Sources
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thyJOnasHVE&t=14s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtJheFHKHP8
- https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/486060013/what-makes-a-comedy-funnier-music-with-a-straight-face
- I streamed Wayne’s World from Amazon Prime Video.
- I streamed Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure from Amazon Prime Video. This left Prime on March 31, 2019, so it can be rented here.
- I used various IMDB links throughout this post. Their specific URLs can be found when clicking on them.
A Lot To Learn 